Foreign Intelligence Briefing #404: The Cool Thing We Missed About The Annular Eclipse

(via) Take a moment and sympathize with all the local science geeks who had yesterday’s shit weather kick them in the shins with steel-toed meanie boots. Why you so rain, clouds?

Foreign Intelligence Briefing #403: “Devil’s Breath”, The World’s Most Dangerous Drug

Vice takes us to Bogota to check out “The Devil’s Breath”, a South American flowering plant that, when treated chemically in a way similar to cocaine, creates Scopolamine, a drug that renders (when it doesn’t kill) one outwardly sober but incapable of resisting the will of others.

The first few days in the country were a harrowing montage of freaked-out dealers and unimaginable horror stories about Scopolamine. After meeting only a few people with firsthand experience, the story took a far darker turn than we ever could have imagined.

Fascinating and horrifying. Three cheers for no thanks.

Foreign Intelligence Briefing #402: Actor Russell Brand Schools Brit MPs On Addiction

Many money quotes, beginning with: “What I want to offer people is truth and authenticity. I think celebrity, as we all know, is a vapid, vacuous, toxic concept used to distract people from what is actually important, and in this case it’s the treatment of people with the disease of addiction.” More.

Foreign Intelligence Briefing #401: Maurice Sendak, We’ll Eat You Up! We Love You So!

Sad news this morning. Maurice Sendak, author of Where The Wild Things Are and In The Night Kitchen, has died at the age of 83.

Despite its wild popularity, Mr. Sendak’s work was not always well received. Some early reviews of “Where the Wild Things Are” expressed puzzlement and outright unease. Writing in Ladies’ Home Journal, the psychologist Bruno Bettelheim took Mr. Sendak to task for punishing Max:

“The basic anxiety of the child is desertion,” Mr. Bettelheim wrote. “To be sent to bed alone is one desertion, and without food is the second desertion.” (Mr. Bettelheim admitted that he had not actually read the book.)

“In the Night Kitchen,” which depicts its young hero, Mickey, in the nude, prompted many school librarians to bowdlerize the book by drawing a diaper over Mickey’s nether region.

But these were minority responses. Mr. Sendak’s other awards include the Hans Christian Andersen Award for Illustration, the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award and, in 1996, the National Medal of the Arts, presented by President Bill Clinton. Twenty-two of his titles have been named New York Times best illustrated books of the year.

His childrens books had already long ago joined the pantheon of greats. Now, so does he. There, we imagine him befriending Shakespeare, poking fun at Herodotus, causing shit with Hemingway, Seuss and Thompson, and randomly yelling “Let the wild rumpus start!”

Foreign Intelligence Briefing #400: Kate Beckinsale Wants Mitt Romney In Her Vagina

(via) Actress Kate Beckinsale and her friends ask Republican Mitt Romney and his friends to take away their right to choose in a novel media campaign (sorta NSFW).

Foreign Intelligence Briefing #399: “Kony 2012″ Releases 20 Minute Follow-Up Movie

After Kony 2012 boss Jason Russell’s apparent breakdown in California a few weeks ago (he went screaming naked in the streets), the organisation has just released a new 20 minute film – Kony 2012 Part 2: Beyond Famous – detailing Invisible Children’s progress in raising awareness about the evil Gargamel Joseph Kony and his cat Asrael the LRA. Have your salt grains at the ready. Though Kony is indeed a massive asshole, TDW reminds us that Invisible Children isn’t a charity, but rather “a private interest group that allocates the overwhelming majority of its budget (nearly 70% in 2011) toward travel, compensation, administration, fundraising, making movies, and lobbying celebrities and Congress to support its central aim: direct foreign military intervention in Africa.” The new film is as well-made as the original, but as a consequence of the negative fallout surrounding the original, it’s hard to find it anywhere near as compelling. Will it have the same reach/impact? It’s hardly a day old, and quickly approaching a million hits. Cue internet backlash in 3, 2, 1…

Foreign Intelligence Briefing #398: On The Campaign To “Make Joseph Kony Famous”

The campaign to make the Joseph Kony famous in 2012 is underway, and we’ve never seen anything so worthwhile trend so suddenly and enormously. Kony is the religious extremist leader of the Lord’s Resistance Army, a Ugandan rebel group roaming central Africa with the aim of establishing a state ruled by the Ten Commandments. He has forced an estimated 66,000 kids to fight for him and has displaced some 2 million people in several countries, some of the world’s poorest. He’s been indicted for war crimes, but he’s still at large. The ace up his sleeve? No one with any power to interrupt his assholery has stepped up to stop him. This campaign aims to change that.

If it works, it will likely be seen by future historians as a watershed moment in the annals of how we deal with very bad people. World governments only commit to “police actions” if it serves the interests of either their supporters (ie. big oil) or their national interests (ie. big oil again), a fact that has allowed folks like Kony to carry on unmolested. There’s nothing in the rulebook that says citizens can’t kick and scream about issues they care about, and that’s never been more true since the advent of social media. If we want Kony’s days to be numbered, we’re the ones holding the calendar. If a big enough stink is raised, Kony will be brought to justice.

What can you do? For starters, watch the film above if you haven’t already, and think about joining thousands of Vancouverites at the Art Gallery at 8pm on April 20th. Details on the gathering here.

Foreign Intelligence Briefing #397: DARPA Develops Robot Cheetah To Hunt People With

Freaky. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s new toy is a robot cheetah that can run faster than any human. Its military brief is to “chase and evade”, which is totally comforting. Think it won’t happen? DARPA throws us some pretty weird curves that have stuck, like the internet. So…yeah…robot cheetahs! Via BoingBoing:

[It] needs neither to see nor scent you to know where you are hiding (because you’re screaming).

Now continue about your business.

Foreign Intelligence Briefing #396: The DTES As Seen Through The Bright Prism Of Detroit

I love this short documentary. My neighbourhood is in it, even though it really isn’t. 9 Businesses depicts – yup – nine new businesses in the once mighty city of Detroit, which is still struggling to find some semblance of a renaissance after several decades of decay. While the parallels between the declines of Motown and the DTES aren’t perfectly aligned (far from it), the individuals profiled in the film most certainly are. The resemblances are uncanny. They share the very same goals, inspirations, and vocations of those who’ve recently set up shop in and around the DTES. They’re all cooks, craftsmen, designers, bakers, creatives, and such – all young, independent, and bereft of wealth, but eager nonetheless to inject some awesomeness back into a city they love. And the consequences for them are the same, too. They’re either welcomed as restorers of an urban fabric long ago rent asunder or scoffed at as the foot soldiers of gentrification, even though the realities on the ground are defined more by nuance and instance than the black and white of absolutism. Anyway, it’s worth watching if you can spare six and half minutes.

Foreign Intelligence Briefing #395: The GOP Of New Hampshire Are Simply Outstanding!

Rather amazingly, Republican legislators in New Hampshire want the laws they write to adhere not to the US Constitution (that old rag?) but to Britain’s ancient Magna Carta. Sounds like a convincing two of their number have watched way too much History Channel:

Under House Bill 1580, set to be introduced by House Republicans Bob Kingsbury, Tim Twombly and Lucien Vita, all new legislation would have to quote the 800-year old document that outlines feudal barons’ demands of King John of England.

The lawmakers say their intention is to honor the 800th anniversary of the Magna Carta, but they also believe it’s “a document that still functions.”

“This is a little bit older than the Constitution, but the same thought is there,” said Vita.

The “functioning” document includes such totally-not-racist laws as “If anyone who has borrowed a sum of money from Jews dies before the debt has been repaid, his heir shall pay no interest on the debt for so long as he remains under age.”

The state Democratic Party also supports the bill. Sort of.

“I appreciate all the hard work the Republican legislators are putting into the effort to make them look like extremists,” said Ray Buckley, spokesman for the Democrats. “Saves us the trouble.”

Face palm.

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